Stereohearts
by IntraSule
Summary: Matthew is an easy target for any type of belittlement: beatings, insults, rumors, even bullying from his own brother. Lovino notices this daily suffering and is getting sick of it. I don't own Hetalia or the characters used in this. *HIATUS* This story is officially on hiatus until I finish my other multi-chapter story, The Danish Slaughterhouse. It'll continue, just not now.
1. Chapter 1

The room was empty. With no students practically shoving their way through the double doors to get to the meals and pick out the best tables for themselves and their friends, the school's expansive cafeteria was silent enough that even the tiniest tick of the wall clock's seconds hand echoed with astounding resonance. This sort of solitude is what Matthew Williams-Kirkland enjoyed.

He enjoyed being able to sit at any random table he felt was comfortable and being able to hear himself think. Everyday before classes starts, before a lot of his peers were even getting out of bed, Matthew would sneak out of the house before his family awoke and take a brisk walk to his school, Gratus Tenor Academy, to reap the benefits of an almost-empty school. He could talk to the teachers about assignments he didn't understand; he could finish up homework assignments or projects he couldn't complete at his own home; he could settle down to a hard-earned book.

Most importantly, Matthew loved the solitude, peace, and silence of the cafeteria because he was able to write.

Matthew tends to write an assortment of things- like short stories, random ideas, poems- but what he usually write the most were lyrics. Sometimes when he hums, tap on a desk in utter boredom, or simply said something that rhymed and sounded deep, he would whip out his trusty black leather bound journal and scribble away, letting the words pour onto the pages as freely as they went. The great thing about being alone in the cafeteria was that Matthew had a lot of time to himself so he could write without a distraction or urgent matter interrupting him, and at his home there were plenty of those flying about, especially those concerning his older brother. Or, more accurately, coming _from _his older brother. Coming to this cafeteria gave Matthew the opportunity to not have to hear that loud-mouth jock go on and on about whatever simply happens to pop into his head, and Matthew needed the space from him as long as possible.

Humming a tune to keep the rhythm memorized, Matthew toyed with the pen in his hand as he thought of a chorus- which caused a lot of black ink to mark the palm of his hand- and tapped his foot on the tiles beneath him. "_'Stars glittering the dark night/Look up at the dotted skies/Illuminate our souls with the galactic light-'_ How should I continue this?" He asked himself. As he thought of words that rhymed with skies and mentally made up lines with them to see if they'll work in the song, the double doors to the cafeteria swung open with a startling bang.

Matthew sighed and closed his journal, regretful at the loss of peace. He folded his hands on the table and waited expectantly as the sounds of running feet sped closer behind him.

"Yo, Mattie! What's up?" Alfred Jones-Kirkland, Matthew's older brother, called into Matthew's ear as he pulled his neck into a chokehold-like hug and ground his knuckles into Matthew's head.

"Ngh! H-hey, Al," Matthew gasped out. "Y-you're here, early."

"Yeah, and so are you. You left your lunch when you were trying to sneak out of the house, again," Alfred said as he dropped an insulated lunchbag on top of the table. "If you're going to sneak out, at least bring this with you, and find a better place to go besides_ school_. Dad's getting pretty sick of your forgetfulness and I'm kinda getting sick of bringing your shit to you."

"I don't see why not; you get to sneak out whatever dessert he leaves to me." Matthew opened his lunchbag. Sure enough, he was missing his usual sandwich bag full of chocolate-covered raisins.

"Daily payment for helping you to not starve during lunch." Alfred looked around at the empty tables. "Dude, what is so great about being here when it's completely deserted? What do you do here, anyway?" He spotted the leather bound journal and snatched it up. "Whoa, you still have this old thing?!"

"Hey! Yes, I do. I appreciate gifts given to me. Now give it back before you rip it up or something!" Matthew reached for the journal, but Alfred held it away and began walking off, silently reading the poems and lyrics on the pages.

"Ew, man, there're so much gay shit in this!" Alfred grimaced as he flipped through the pages. "'Bright-Eyed Lily?' What kind of man names a song 'Bright-Eyed Lily'?"

"It's a soliloquy, Alfred, and it's none of your business what I write!" Matthew snapped as he ran up to Alfred and tried to snatch his journal back. "Now give it back!"

Alfred held the journal high above his head, sniggering as Matthew jumped up to get it. "Dude, I'm doing this for you. Write anymore of this shit, and you'll end up being some big-dicked guy's bottom bitch, and your anus is too sensitive for that kind of ass-pounding!"

"Dammit, Alfred, that's not funny! And I'm not gay! Knock it off!" Matthew feebly reached up for journal, angry at the four-inch difference nature blessed Alfred with and cursed Matthew with. "This is seriously immature!"

"Like I said, Mattie, I'm just trying to save your ass from some guy's huge dick. Oh, hey, Gil, catch!" Alfred flung the journal to Gilbert Beilschmidt just as he and Feliks Łukasiewicz walked in through the doors to cut through the cafeteria. The journal's spine made contact with Gilbert's forehead, leaving a bright red rectangle mark to form across the pale skin.

"Ach!" Gilbert spat as the journal dropped to the floor. "Alfred, what the hell?!" When he saw that Matthew was reaching towards the journal on the floor, Gilbert quickly caught on and side swept the book to Feliks with his foot.

Feliks picked it up and loudly read a line to one of the poems. "'Wipe away any trail of tears from your cheek before they catch on to the sadness, run towards the light before you get lost in the worldwide madness.' Ew, Alfred, your little brother's going all emo on us!" He tossed the journal back to Alfred, who caught it and waited for Matthew to run to him before tossing it to Gilbert.

"A gay emo at that," Gilbert added as he read a line of soliloquy Alfred found in the journal earlier. "Damn, man, all this stuff would put Justin Bieber's songs to shame in an instant." He tossed the journal back to Alfred, who tossed it to Feliks. They continued this game of keep away, sniggering and flinging the journal in the air just out of Matthew's reach. Then Matthew just froze. He stood still and hung his head, his clenched fists shaking at his sides and his shoulders shuddering.

Recognizing Matthew's body language, Alfred laugh and held his hand up for the journal. "Okay, guys, the little man's had enough for today; give it here." Feliks tossed the journal to Alfred. Alfred walked up to Matthew and slammed the journal into his younger brother's chest, hissing in his ear as he started to wheeze from the impact, "Learn to take a fucking joke, you ass," before walking out of the cafeteria with his friends to their classes.

Matthew stood still with his arms wrapped around his journal, holding it tightly against him as he tried to stop his body from shaking. He started sniffling. _Don't do it, Matthew, not here. _When the bell finally rang for first period, Matthew ran to the table that he was sitting in, gathered his lunch and backpack, and wordlessly rushed out the cafeteria.

* * *

I'm sorry that this is a poor start to the story; I tried to not make this start out as the typical high school drama on television. Anyway, do you readers believe that I should edit this chapter to add more, or is this good where I left off?


	2. Chapter 2

You guys, I'm so glad that the first chapter was a good start! Thank you for the reviews and reassurance! Although now I'm afraid to tell you guys that the beginning will be a little slow before I can even get to the big stuff that I wanted to. Hopefully I'm wrong, but a little warning is good for the precautionary types, yes?

* * *

It was third period Calculus, one of the few unenjoyably dull classes that Matthew had to take against his will, which meant that it wasn't even half a school day before Matthew was extremely bored to tears.

Matthew took a seat in the farthest corner in the back of the classroom, the area where the teacher was least likely to notice the already-invisible teen and call on him to complete an equation or recite a formula. This is the spot that Matthew went to every time he comes to this course, the spot that provided him with solitude and private space like the cafeteria before the start of the day; if this area wasn't available, he'd go take a desk by the window to have a scenic view during the lecture. Matthew nestled his chin in his hand, his elbow propped on the desk and his head turned away from the blackboard, the smallest noises like pencil scratching on paper, the chalk scratching against the board up front, and the whispers of gossipy girls and braggart boys becoming less than background noise the more Matthew tuned them out.

The teacher, Mr. Oxenstierna, was saying something about using the grade school F.O.I.L. method to solve some complicated inequality, but Matthew wasn't listening so well; he was watching the stationary cut-outs of mathematic symbols stapled to the bulletin board, the bright colors making the decorations more suitable for elementary or middle school classrooms than a high school one. As he gazed upon the cardboard stencils, he let his mind wonder to a lot of things: his unfinished song, his millions of unfinished poems, his plummeting grades in his least favorite classes, and the excitement of being able to go to his favorite classes. He went over his piling amount of school assignments, projects, and weekend plans to lock himself in his room and type away at his short stories on his laptop. He needed to think about something, everything, _anything_ to avoid thinking about-

_Learn to take a fucking joke, you ass, _Alfred had said to him earlier. Matthew grimaced at the quote; the pit of his stomach started to churn with anger at how insensitive and arrogant Alfred can be. He hated how Alfred thought that anything that didn't relate to sports or other "manly" things like Alfred's baseball or track didn't qualify as important and should be labeled as "gay", which wasn't helping the actual homosexual and bisexual students deal with the high level of homophobic intolerance already in the school. Matthew sighed in frustration; wasn't Alfred supposed to be his big brother, the older sibling that protected his or her younger siblings and encourage them to pursue their dream, not belittle him and his only real interests and talents to the point of numbing his soul, or "joke around" as Alfred liked to call it? Matthew gave an inaudible laugh; maybe that was a little too much to ask from a jock whose main concern centered on baseball and around-the-clock hamburgers, especially when there were other kids who were picked on by their siblings and managed to do pretty well in life.

_Does that make me sound like an apologist? _Matthew wondered as the stencils on the wall began to blend together in his mind. He started absentmindedly playing with the curl that hung from his head. Around him, he heard his classmates snickering, but he dismissed it and continued with his contemplation, focusing intensely on the wall and the whirring of lyrics and stanzas he was creating for his new poems and songs. It wasn't until he noticed a flash of bright light from the corner of his eye did he come back to reality.

_What the heck was that? _Matthew wondered. He then noticed the heavy weight of a muscular arm draped around his shoulders, weighing him down considerably. Everyone was looking at his direction, giggling and pointing. _Wha-?_

"Good to see you're back," A heavily Swedish accented voice said. "Now we can take a picture of you when you're _not _spacing out again."

Matthew shut his eyes in embarrassment. _Crud, I hate it when he does this..._ Matthew turned his face towards the digital camera a student was holding up.

"Say 'bad Calc grade'," Mr. Oxenstierna drawled, pulling his arm tighter around Matthew's shoulder. Matthew smiled sheepishly and gave a small wave as the student holding the camera clicked the button twice. When he was finished, Mr. Oxesteirna took the camera and flipped through the current photos, smiling at the work. "Wow, this is nicer than the last ones we took; this is going straight to the Calc Failures scrapbook."

"Ha ha, very funny, Mr. Oxenstierna," Matthew muttered humorlessly, too used to this joke to put much emotion to his reaction. He then smirked as a comeback came to him. "...Although _does_ it seems a little weird that you keep a collection candid photos of your students locked up somewhere. A bit creepy, don't you think?"

Mr. Oxenstierna snorted and ruffled Matthew's hair. "Get out your book and pay attention," he said before going back to the front of class and placing his camera in desk drawer. He picked up his textbook, skimmed over the page, and went back to discussing where he left off.

Matthew flipped open his textbook and notebook and copied the content on the blackboard to the lined pages, all of the numbers and mathematical symbols an entirely different language that he couldn't comprehend. None of it mattered though; five minutes into returning to the lesson, Matthew let his mind wander to the thousands of abstract thoughts fluttering within his head. His hand began to doodle musical notes and symbols in the corners of the notebook page and his blank eyes lingered on the words and graphs in the textbook pages, not really reading it all. A small voice in the back of his mind was telling him (more like barking at him) to focus on the lesson going on and listen to Mr. Oxenstierna because he needed to improve his grade and be able to graduate high school in the coming years, but he figured that he'll just do extra studying at home, if he were to be so lucky to have a father and a brother who could grace his home with a little peace.

"Matthew, pay attention," Mr. Oxenstierna muttered in a sing-songy tone without turning away from the blackboard; he had a sixth sense when it came to knowing that he was a student less of the whole classroom's attention.

* * *

The school bell rang, signaling that third period was _finally _done for the day. Quickly stacking his notebook and textbook together, Matthew rushed out of the classroom and to his locker to exchange his Calculus items for his History items, already dreading have to suffer through another uninteresting course. Besides giving him unfavorable classes, the schedule Matthew's guidance counselor create for him was loathed deeply by Matthew because it had him running up and down the school building everyday to get to classes that were on different levels, meaning that once the bell rings, he has to get to his locker, retrieve the books he needed, and run before he gets late for the beginning of the lesson, and even to get into the room if the teachers were strict enough to lock their doors and exclude "absentees" a second late.

At the locker, Matthew snatched up the combination lock and began twisting the knob to unlock it, half of his mind trying to remember whether or not he left any assignments at home or if he did any of them period. _Zero to the right, sixteen to the left- maybe I left the paper in the desk drawer at home- two to the right- I know I had put it in the folder when I finished- and 30 to the left- or did I put it in _before _completing it and forgot? Man, Mr. Honda's gonna have my head!_

Matthew separated the latch from the lock chambers, slipped the combination off, and pulled his locker door open. He gently tossed his Calculus book into the locker, quickly scribbled a note of his new math homework and study plan on his magnet locker notepad. Afterwards, he took out his History book, notebook, and folder, and searched in the folder for the homework he was worrying over. His heart leapt greatly when he saw that not only did he bring the stacks of worksheets with him to school, but he completed them as well, the answers being correct or incorrect unimportant at the moment.

"Yes!" Matthew squealed quietly, pumping his fist in the air before grabbing his pencils, tucking his books under his arm, and closing the locker. He started to reset his lock on his locker when he felt another arm drape- more accurately slam- around his shoulder. He yelped at the sudden weight and jumped.

"Yo, Mattie, did you space out in Calculus again?" A hyper voice giggled in his ear.

Matthew rolled his eyes and shoved Alfred's face away. "Hey to you, Alfred," he replied.

"I heard that you spaced out in Mr. Oxenstierna's class again. So, did ya?"

Matthew sighed. It sucked how word spread quickly around school, especially something that shouldn't be so interesting and funny anymore since it's so regular now. "Yes, Al, I did, okay?"

"Oh, Mattie! You know how much Dad _hates_ it when he hears about you not doing shit in class!"

"Well, it's not like you have to go running to him and blab like an idiot!" Matthew angrily shirked off Alfred's arm from his shoulder and began to storm off in the direction of the stairs.

Alfred shrugged at Matthew's attitude and followed after him. "I wasn't going to tell him, anyway. I don't really need to since Ber-Ber calls before we even get home." He then gasped when a sudden thought came to him. "Oh, dude, listen! I totally forgot Mr. Carriedo's homework! Can I borrow a couple of your answers before we go in today?"

Matthew stopped at the top step of the stair and turned to look up at Alfred, placing a hand on his hip and giving a disapproving scowl. "Alfred, what the heck do you do when you're given homework, exactly?"

"Mattie, you know that Mr. Carriedo _hates _me! He doesn't understand that I have too much on my plate to hand in homework on time like baseball practice, track practice, part-time work-"

"Flirting with girls, playing 'pranks' with Gilbert and Feliks, playing your video games, and reading your comics while stuffing your face with hamburgers," Matthew droned. "You are not that busy. And Mr. Carriedo doesn't hate you, you just don't respect him as a student should to his teacher."

Alfred scoffed. "Says the infamous Calc Class Spacer!"

"It's 'Calc Failure,' Al," Matthew said, wondering why he even made the correction on an insult in the first place. "And it's not like I do absolutely nothing in that class; I do some studying and homework to make decent grades, unlike you who don't put in any work at all."

Alfred stared blankly at him. "So...is that a yes or what?"

"It's a no, Alfred, not today; I have to get to class, now. Later." Matthew turned around to walk down the stairs.

Alfred glared at Matthew's back. "Thanks for nothing, asshole!" he spat as he roughly swatted the back of Matthew's head.

Although the slap didn't hurt so much, it did surprise Matthew enough to cause him to lose focus on where he was stepping. His foot overstepped and slipped on the edge, and he lost his balance. His History book and items flew out of his grasp as he flailed his arms to regain the lost balance. If it wasn't for Alfred grabbing the back of his hoodie and pulling him upright, he would've tumbled down after his textbook and spilled papers and pencils.

"Alfred, what the heck?!" Matthew shouted as he ran down the stairs to pick up his items. "Ugh, _fout!"_

Alfred rolled his eyes. "Dude, you are too overdramatic, I swear! I barely even touched you and you're already falling all over the place!"

"Al, you almost made me fall down the stairs by making me lose focus on where I was walking!" Matthew snapped as he picked up the pencils and the textbook. The bell rang again. Matthew hastily picked up the rest of his stuff and sloppily put them together. "Ugh! _Fout, fout, fout!_"

Alfred shoved his hands in his pockets and walked down the stairs past his younger brother. "Karma's a bitch, ain't it?" he called over his shoulder.

Matthew's face heated into a visible hot red as he rushed down the stairs to get to Mr. Honda's history class, the fury and panic in his veins making his heart race rapidly.

A few feet away from the stairwell, a young man was watching the oh-so loving interaction between the Kirkland brothers from behind the door of his locker, his face scrunched tightly into a disapproving scowl. He slammed the locker shut and stalked off to his own class before he got into anymore trouble himself.

* * *

So, Derp A Thon gave me to use Mr. Honda as a history teacher and Mr. Oxenstierna as the math teacher, especially Berwald, the nerdy type who'll teach something boring like Calculus. And then I remembered that canon Berwald had a playful side, so I combined the two and made him into my high school PreCalculus teacher: he taught boring stuff even though it sounded like a complete foreign language to some of the class, but he still told jokes and was funny in general.

Now that I think about it, the relationship between Matthew and Berwald is the same that I had with my high school PreCalculus teacher: he taught while I ignored him half the time in favor of doodling and writing. Heh heh heh, good times...


End file.
